


You Operate So Well

by psiten



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Banter, Dana Scully Has No Mercy, F/M, Fox Mulder Is A Dork, It's not what you think, No Smut, Post-Relationship, References to Sex, Set During Hiatus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 15:47:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13367946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psiten/pseuds/psiten
Summary: While I have no doubt that Mulder and Scullyhave hadsex while Mulder is wearing handcuffs, the fact remains: it's not actually a good way to learn how to handle yourself in a fight while wearing handcuffs. It's a totally different set of skills."Wait! Scully, just a-- don't come in yet! I'm not ready!"Naked again? Scully thought with a sigh. She could just swear, half of his proofs of lost time probably involved him just losing track of it, and in many cases, forgetting to get dressed. "Come on, Mulder. It's nothing I haven't seen before. Don't be a baby."My fingers slipped and I wrote a thing (inspired by the handcuff quote from 11X02, obviously). AKA, I will never not be in this fandom.





	You Operate So Well

     As soon as Scully walked into the dimly lit halls of this particular seedy apartment building, she knew for certain that the key Mulder had left in their dead drop (unnecessary, really, but it made Mulder feel safer, and it was kind of fun) was for a temporary residence only. The walls here were too shoddy to withstand real bullet fire, the sightlines were awful, and the chances of getting good security footage off of a camera were slim to none. Mulder would never agree to live in a place like this permanently, so the place he'd mentioned closing on had to be somewhere else.

     Hopefully somewhere cleaner.

     8H, or so the fake brass letters on the door said, which meant this was the door Mulder had told her to come to. She knocked lightly and called out, "Mulder, it's me. I'm coming in." He'd been acting a little cagey all week. Surprising him might not end well for anyone.

     A voice that'd gotten her through a lot of tough times yelled back, "Wait! Scully, just a-- don't come in yet! I'm not ready!"

     Naked again? Scully thought with a sigh. She could just swear, half of his proofs of lost time probably involved him just losing track of it, and in many cases, forgetting to get dressed. "Come on, Mulder. It's nothing I haven't seen before. Don't be a baby." She turned the key in the lock and opened the door.

     Mulder was in a straight-backed chair with his feet chained to the chair legs, hands cuffed behind the back of the chair. The wince of embarrassment on his face was amazing, really. Probably one of the top ten moments of Mulder embarrassment she'd seen in her life.

     Top ten. Not top five.

     "Stuck?" she asked, and kicked the door shut behind her.

     "I assure you, there is a perfectly reasonable, logical--"

     "Scientific?"

     "... a really, really good explanation for this."

     Neither of them could keep a straight face for long once those words had come out of this mouth. His laughs were more sheepish than hers, since they were accompanied by Mulder straining to get what looked like a paperclip out of his sleeve and into the handcuff lock, but at least he was wearing clothes this time. A t-shirt _and_ pants.

     "You don't seem to be concerned about someone having taken you hostage," she mused, walking around the chair while he rolled his eyes. "Did a date end badly? You really need to learn to tip better, Mulder."

     "Ha ha. No, it wasn't a date. Although, I mean, I was hoping we--" Scully raised an eyebrow and tried not to giggle. Mulder didn't even seem to have a bed, as usual, and she definitely wasn't doing _anything_ on a floor or chair in this place, even though ending their relationship hadn't exactly meant losing all the benefits of a relationship whenever they happened to meet up. It was just so hard not to giggle when Mulder was turning red from his neck on up while he pulled at his restraints again. "I mean that's not... not that I'd mind if... Shit. I don't have a good way out of this sentence, do I?"

     She sat down on his lap and ran a thumb over his cheek, more craggy than than the first time she'd met the spooky prettyboy the FBI kept in its basement, but no less sweet. "It's true, Mulder, you really should shut up. I can help you out of those cuffs if you want."

     "Absolutely not. I've got this covered. I was hoping I would've finished re-checking my skills before you got here, but I guess I'm not as spry as I used to be. I _will_ get this, though, or my name isn't Fox 'Houdini' Mulder." He went back to trying to unbend his paperclip, deliberately looking back over his shoulder even though he had to know he'd never get a look at his hands that way. He was probably trying to hide how his eyes had dilated since since she'd taken a seat, but there were other signs of arousal he couldn't disguise quite as easily. Old habits died hard. She guessed that went for her as well.

     Still, he was trying to be polite. It was only polite to let him. "Suit yourself," she answered, and walked off toward what looked like the kitchen.

     He kept talking while she rifled through his mostly empty cupboards. "Honestly, Scully, this had nothing to do with my plans for the evening. I was brushing up, you know. Improving myself. I had expected to get out of this, like, an hour ago, but you know how it goes. The best laid plans of mice and men."

     A half-empty box of granola bars that she recognized from his last place, a can of Chef Boyardee so dusty, it'd probably been left by the last renters, and some cereal. Frosted Flakes, but at least the bag was rolled down so it wouldn't get stale. "If I were going to judge you after all these years, Mulder, believe me, it wouldn't be for handcuffing yourself to a chair. How did you do that part anyway?"

     "It's amazing what you can manage with the edge of a radiator as leverage."

     "You know it's really not safe to undertake this sort of training by yourself, without supervision." The refrigerator had leftovers from three kinds of takeout, a six pack of beer minus two bottles, and... Aww. He actually had a bottle of milk, and it wasn't expired. Mulder might just learn to survive on his own after all, at least as far as food was concerned. Taking out the milk, she called back, "What would've happened if you got stuck and I hadn't been coming over?"

     "The walls here are like paper. I could bang my head against the wall a few times, yell for help..." A soft, high-pitched clatter just barely reached her ears. "Ah, shit..."

     "Something wrong?" she asked, pouring some of the cereal into the bowl -- washed! -- stacked neatly with the small collection of dishes to the right of the sink.

     "Nope, nothing! I'm fine!"

     A splash of milk in the bowl, and she was fortified for what was probably going to be a long night before their actual plans materialized. "You don't sound fine, Mulder."

     From the doorway, she could see the problem as she spooned Frosted Flakes into her mouth. His precious paperclip had fallen to the floor, where he definitely couldn't reach it. He was currently trying to get enough force out of his chained legs and hands to knock over the chair he was in.

     "Oh, Mulder," she sighed.

     "This is very serious training for potential dangerous situations."

     "Uh-huh." She sat down on Mulder's couch, eating Frosted Flakes while her 'former' partner tried and failed repeatedly to get his center of weight far enough to the outside of the chair's frame that he'd topple to the floor. The side table had the First-Aid Kit she'd made him take, so she'd have icepacks and bandages if he ever managed it, but given how wide the chair base was, how little contact with the floor he'd given his feet when he chained them, and how little room he'd given himself to wiggle, rocking side to side wasn't going to make it happen.

     It took Mulder a little longer to realize it. He'd always been stubborn like that. Still, halfway through her sugar-covered corn flake snack, he looked over at her with that pathetic puppy dog pout she remembered so well. "Help?" Mulder asked.

     She shrugged and ate another bite of cereal. "Surely you've got something up your sleeve, _Houdini_. And you did promise me dinner and a show. This one's pretty entertaining."

     "You are a cruel, cruel woman, Scully."

     "And you love me."

     He hung his head with a sigh. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."

     Well, her cereal was just about done anyway. Putting it down on the table next to the shiny key that probably unlocked those cuffs, she walked towards him, and his eyes lit up like he still had the hope and energy of a thirty-five year old. The more fool, he. She grabbed the top of the chair back and pulled it backwards, bracing her foot on the bottom rung. His grin got even dopier as she lowered him (safely, no shoulder sprains unless he caused them himself) to the ground.

     "Okay," he said. She really never got tired of looking down at him lying helpless on the floor in a mess of his own making. "Very funny. But the keys are right over there. So--"

     "I thought you said you had this covered." She walked toward something that looked like a closet next to the kitchen. "Is this your bathroom, Mulder? I could use a chance to freshen up."

     "Scully? Wait, Scully! You can't just leave me here!"

     "I'd hate to deprive you of your serious training, Mulder."

     Scully closed the door on what was, in fact, the bathroom. As cute as he was when he struggled, if he was still looking helpless when she finished washing up, she'd unlock his cuffs for him, she supposed.

     Probably.


End file.
